Time
by Annie2
Summary: Spike's thoughts after Buffy's return from the dead.


Time  
  
By Annie Rated: PG (sorry) Spoilers: The Bargaining; Afterlife Disclaimer: Not mine, yadda, yadda, yadda Feedback: crehnert@ptd.net  
  
Time stood still.  
  
Finally.  
  
After existing through 147 days of emptiness; 3, 528 hours of the knowledge that I was a failure; 211, 680 minutes of knowing I would never so much as lay eyes on her again, and 12, 700, 800 seconds of willingness to sell the soul I didn't have anymore in the off chance I would see her again, time finally stopped torturing me.  
  
I was yelling at Dawn, only because I was so worried, so guilt-ridden, on top of all the guilt I had already amassed for myself. I had let her out of my sight, and lost her. Of course I yelled. And the look on her face didn't even register, because I was too bloody busy with the substitute parenting to really look at her.  
  
BuffyBot was there. Except it wasn't.  
  
The look on Dawn's face and the tone of her voice registered at the same time the onslaught to my senses told me I was wrong. Only Buffy, Buffy in the natural flesh, could slam my psyche hard enough to keep me speechless, that instant in time hitting me like a sledgehammer.  
  
Buffy was there, and time stood still; gone - wiped out in a second by a single glance.  
  
Sometimes the old poet in me returns unbidden. He's just there, unannounced. Do you know how humiliating that is; to think I was once known in all underworld circles as the Big Bad, and now every once in a while to have thoughts like these.  
  
She was Scarlet, gliding down the staircase while Rhett watched enraptured from below. She was Rose, coming down the stairs to be met by an equally- enraptured Jack Dawson, who took her hand and kissed it. But she stopped on the stairs, and I would have been more than glad to take her hands, her poor desecrated hands, and kiss them better.  
  
I watch too many movies.  
  
She was here. And I was almost speechless; would have been breathless if I had any breath to lose; she would have stopped my disbelieving heart in its' tracks if it had been beating.  
  
Of course, I couldn't - wouldn't - say any of these things, and when I saw her hands, my first instinct was to help her. The very fact that she allowed me to do so was like a miracle. I almost touched her shoulder when she came off the stairs, but I was afraid.  
  
Imagine that.  
  
I wasn't afraid to hold her two hands in mine, inexplicably glad for the gruesome damage that allowed me to touch her. The sight of her blood and flesh made my own blood boil in my veins, like the old days, when the scent of Slayer blood would send my senses reeling and make me hot for something. Back then I thought it was only for the taste of her blood. Now I knew it was for the taste of her soul.  
  
And she asked. She asked how long; I had the answer ready, since I did nothing all that time but count the days, hours and seconds. They were gone now, in a flash.  
  
But at what price?  
  
I never got to help her poor hands, and our frozen moment in time was shattered as the Scoobies came in, all rushing around and talking at once, attacking her with questions. It was then I realized it hadn't been done by a desperate Dawn, missing her big sister, but by an over-enthusiastic red- headed Wiccan, trying on spells which are probably too big for her.  
  
So I left, hauled bloody ass outside to vent my confused rage against the night. But I was so fucking glad she was back, and I was so scared she was 'wrong.'  
  
How dare they do this?  
  
And how dare they do it without telling me? I would never have left her there to dig her way out of the ground.  
  
Why I yelled at Xander was a simple matter of helplessness. I have not been helpless often in my hundred-plus years of existence; even the wheelchair hadn't kept me for long, way back then. Way back then when I hated the Slayer and would have killed her in an instant, should have, as I had enough chances, but somehow that never worked out.  
  
I took off on my bike furiously; there will be consequences somehow. Sometime.  
  
I never slept that next day, wondering what was happening, afraid to chance the flaming light of day to go to the house, and still unsure of the welcome I would get. She had seemed so lost, so much like she was still in the dark. I was still furious with them, all day, as I paced around my crypt like an angry, caged tiger.  
  
What was going on? Was she all right? Was the bloody Watcher coming back and would he have the guff to call Willow on the carpet for doing it? He obviously hadn't known, or he would never have left for merry old England.  
  
I wanted to help her, and as I wandered around, unaware of how much time had actually passed, I slammed my own hand viciously into the stone next to me. It hurt, but it was the only way I could try to take some of her pain for myself. When I came back from the dead, I came as a monster, totally different from what I had been. Now, with Buffy, it didn't seem like she was a monster, but only time would tell if she was really all right.  
  
I decided that no matter what, Witch Willow would not be allowed to send her back. No matter what.  
  
I was almost surprised to see her waiting for me upstairs, although I shouldn't have been. This weird confidentiality we share together, this freaky you-are-my-enemy-but-somehow-we are-the-same thing that seems to happen to us in a time of crisis should have warned me that she would come.  
  
She didn't want to talk much, and she was still too quiet. So I told her how I saved her every night, how I was so much smarter in hindsight. She saw my own bruised hand and reached out for it slowly, as if mentally comparing it to her own.  
  
"You did this," she said, more a statement than anything else, like she sensed I had this terrible need to share her pain.  
  
I blew it off. "It's nothing. Be better in an hour or so. Tripped over a bloody pool stick downstairs and scraped it on the sodding wall."  
  
But she knew, of course, the Slayer is no fool. Unlike this vampire, who had delusions there could be something when there really couldn't.  
  
"Thank you, Spike," she said softly, standing and letting go of my hand, taking away the blessed burn of her flesh. Her living flesh.  
  
I stood, too, confused, the question evident on my face.  
  
"For promising; for helping; for feeling guilty."  
  
She reached out to hug me, giving a bit of her warmth to me in return for the small measure of help I had given to her. Help that had been nowhere near enough. I had to tell her.  
  
"Buffy, listen to me. I know I ran out last night. I couldn't stay, knowing what they had done. What they did without me. But I would never, ever have left you to dig your way out. I don't know if Willow is right or wrong for doing what she did, but we're all bloody well in it together now."  
  
She started to cry softly, head on my chest, and my hands went up to smooth her hair, and stroke her back comfortingly. If this was all I was to have, then I would take it.  
  
After all, now there was time to wait for more. 


End file.
